U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Iranian and Russian operatives may be considering influence operations intended to incite violence in America even after all the ballots are cast on Election Day.

Intelligence officials declassified an assessment of foreign adversaries’ dirty tricks, which also said Iran, Russia and China each has the technical capability to access some U.S. election networks.

The declassified National Intelligence Council memo revealed that American spy agencies have already detected foreign efforts to stoke protests this year.

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“Foreign adversaries that have demonstrated a willingness to encourage participation in non-election-related, First Amendment-protected protests may extend this practice to any potential violent protests in the post-election period to further widen domestic divides,” the memo said.

The memo said a Russian GRU military intelligence unit “sought to recruit a probably unwitting U.S. person to organize protests in the United States” in January.

Intelligence officials also determined Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) encouraged a U.S. national to attend a pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, D.C., and offered to send funds for money and travel.

Officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told reporters that the foreign adversaries have identified the transition period before the next president is sworn in as especially vulnerable to foreign operations.

The intelligence community said in an election security update on Tuesday that the spy agencies were “increasingly confident” that Russian actors were considering and have started to implement efforts timed for the days before and after the November 5 election.

“Some of these influence efforts are aimed at inciting violence and calling into question the validity of democracy as a political system regardless of who wins,” an intelligence official told reporters. “Others are aimed at amplifying false information and conspiracies that may exacerbate post-election tensions in the United States.”

Intelligence officials are also closely monitoring foreign adversaries’ plans to cause chaos in the remaining few days until Election Day.

“We assess that some U.S. adversaries — at a minimum China, Iran, and Russia or Russian-affiliated actors — have the technical capability to access some U.S. election-related networks and systems,” the declassified memo said. “That said, we assess foreign actors will probably refrain from disruptive attacks that seek to alter vote counts because they almost certainly would not be able to tangibly impact the outcome of the federal election without detection; such activity would carry a risk of retaliation, and there is no indication they attempted such attacks during the past two election cycles.”

Following redactions under a section labeled “Cyberattacks against election infrastructure,” the memo said the pro-Russian cyber group Killnet 2.0 has signaled it intends to interfere in the U.S. election in a February post that was since deleted.

The memo did not identify where Killnet deleted its announcement but the group previously published a list of U.S. targets for cyberattacks in 2022 on the platform Telegram. The hackers flooded airports’ websites with traffic at that time, a tactic that disrupted the public-facing websites’ visibility but did not appear to alter the airports’ function.

Among Russia’s active measures underway now are an effort to denigrate Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, according to ODNI officials. The officials’ election security update said a review of electronic content alleging Mr. Walz had engaged in criminal activity earlier in his career showed indications it was the product of Russian influence activity and tactics.

Intelligence officials have previously attributed a hack-and-leak operation aimed at former President Trump’s Republican presidential campaing to Iran.

The National Intelligence Council’s memo said Tuesday that Iran “could use cyber-enabled influence operations that lead to physical threats, including doxxing and leaking of sensitive information.”

“In mid-December 2020, [Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] [redacted] cyber actors were almost certainly responsible for the creation of a website containing death threats against U.S. election officials, [redacted],” the memo said. “The Iranian actors also published personally identifiable information about U.S. federal and state officials to try to incite violence.”

Foreign adversaries may work to disrupt the peaceful transition of power to the next president, according to the intelligence community. U.S. officials assess the adversaries would look to disparage America’s political system and incite protesters by building on existing information operations started earlier in the election cycle.

The U.S. intelligence community’s plan to stop the hostile foreign interventions involves additional warnings exposing foreign adversaries’ plans to disrupt America’s political system.

“A multi-pronged approach that includes direct warnings to adversaries, public messaging to Americans that pre-bunks or debunks false narratives, and proactive communication between local officials and law enforcement has the best chance of thwarting foreign influence efforts after the election,” the declassified memo said. “U.S. adversaries’ longstanding interest in undermining American democracy suggests it will be difficult to dissuade them from engaging during the post-election period.”